The Second Book of Modern Verse | Page 6

her voice.
Deftly does the dust express
In mind her hidden loveliness,
And
from her cool silence stream
The cricket's cry and Dante's dream;

For the earth that breeds the trees
Breeds cities too, and symphonies.

Equally her beauty flows
Into a savior, or a rose --
Looks down
in dream, and from above
Smiles at herself in Jesus' love.
Christ's
love and Homer's art
Are but the workings of her heart;
Through
Leonardo's hand she seeks
Herself, and through Beethoven speaks

In holy thunderings around
The awful message of the ground.
The serene and humble mold
Does in herself all selves enfold --

Kingdoms, destinies, and creeds,
Great dreams, and dauntless deeds,

Science that metes the firmament,
The high, inflexible intent
Of
one for many sacrificed --
Plato's brain, the heart of Christ:
All love,
all legend, and all lore
Are in the dust forevermore.
Even as the growing grass
Up from the soil religions pass,
And the
field that bears the rye
Bears parables and prophecy.
Out of the
earth the poem grows
Like the lily, or the rose;
And all man is, or
yet may be,
Is but herself in agony
Toiling up the steep ascent

Toward the complete accomplishment

When all dust shall be, the
whole
Universe, one conscious soul.
Yea, the quiet and cool sod

Bears in her breast the dream of God.
If you would know what earth is, scan
The intricate, proud heart of
man,
Which is the earth articulate,
And learn how holy and how
great,
How limitless and how profound
Is the nature of the ground
--
How without terror or demur
We may entrust ourselves to her

When we are wearied out, and lay
Our faces in the common clay.

For she is pity, she is love,
All wisdom she, all thoughts that move

About her everlasting breast
Till she gathers them to rest:
All
tenderness of all the ages,
Seraphic secrets of the sages,
Vision and
hope of all the seers,
All prayer, all anguish, and all tears
Are but
the dust, that from her dream
Awakes, and knows herself supreme --

Are but earth when she reveals
All that her secret heart conceals

Down in the dark and silent loam,
Which is ourselves, asleep, at
home.
Yea, and this, my poem, too,
Is part of her as dust and dew,

Wherein herself she doth declare
Through my lips, and say her
prayer.
Trees. [Joyce Kilmer]
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing
breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Idealists. [Alfred Kreymborg]
Brother Tree:
Why do you reach and reach?
Do you dream some
day to touch the sky?
Brother Stream:
Why do you run and run?

Do you dream some day to fill the sea?
Brother Bird:
Why do you
sing and sing?
Do you dream --
~Young Man:
Why do you talk
and talk and talk?~

Blind. [Harry Kemp]
The Spring blew trumpets of color;
Her Green sang in my brain --
I
heard a blind man groping
"Tap -- tap" with his cane;
I pitied him in his blindness;
But can I boast, "I see"?
Perhaps there
walks a spirit
Close by, who pities me, --
A spirit who hears me tapping
The five-sensed cane of mind
Amid
such unguessed glories --
That I am worse than blind.
Yellow Warblers. [Katharine Lee Bates]
The first faint dawn was flushing up the skies
When, dreamland still
bewildering mine eyes,
I looked out to the oak that, winter-long,
--
a winter wild with war and woe and wrong --
Beyond my casement
had been void of song.
And lo! with golden buds the twigs were set,
Live buds that warbled
like a rivulet
Beneath a veil of willows. Then I knew
Those tiny
voices, clear as drops of dew,
Those flying daffodils that fleck the
blue,
Those sparkling visitants from myrtle isles,
Wee pilgrims of the sun,
that measure miles
Innumerable over land and sea
With wings of
shining inches. Flakes of glee,
They filled that dark old oak with
jubilee,
Foretelling in delicious roundelays
Their dainty courtships on the
dipping sprays,
How they should fashion nests, mate helping mate,

Of milkweed flax and fern-down delicate
To keep sky-tinted eggs
inviolate.
Listening to those blithe notes, I slipped once more
From lyric dawn
through dreamland's open door,
And there was God, Eternal Life that
sings,
Eternal joy, brooding all mortal things,
A nest of stars,

beneath untroubled wings.
April -- North Carolina. [Harriet Monroe]
Would you not be in Tryon
Now that the spring is here,
When
mocking-birds are praising
The fresh, the blossomy year?
Look -- on the leafy carpet
Woven of winter's browns
Iris and pink
azaleas
Flutter their gaudy gowns.
The dogwood spreads white meshes --
So white and light and high --

To catch the drifting sunlight
Out of the cobalt sky.
The pointed beech and maple,
The pines, dark-tufted, tall,
Pattern
with many colors
The mountain's purple wall.
Hark -- what a rushing torrent
Of crystal song falls sheer!
Would
you not be in Tryon
Now that the spring is here?
Path Flower. [Olive Tilford Dargan]
A red-cap sang in Bishop's